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Document Highlights

This report is a comparative study that measures and ranks Canada’s food safety performance against that of 16 peer Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The report identifies and evaluates common elements among global food safety systems. It provides an overall world ranking of food safety performance, illustrated by 10 indicators organized across three food safety risk governance domains: assessment, management, and communication. All countries have very high food safety standards, but Canada and Ireland, in particular, earned excellent grades relative to their peers. However, any subsequent global ranking study should consider the development of survey instruments to gather adequate and comparable national evidence on food safety.

Reviews

This report provided the data I was looking for to compare microbial risks between countries. While it didn't provide a scoring of inspections and audits which would have been valuable for my needs, it did explain the challenges associated with evaluating this parameter.

The frameworks for the methodology appear rigorous and flexible according to the changes you might need to make based on changing conditions or circumstances going forward. I along with others am interested in any comparison with non-OECD countries, even with sparse or incomplete data. The study is well done and comprehensive, yet written simply for understanding.

When the next study is commissioned Scotland will have an independent food body Food Standards Scotland, Ireland would be a good comparative benchmark for FSS. In my view the report would be more credible if there was some input from EC,Australia/NZ, Nordic public health scientists or the national authorities could respond to the findings prior to publication.

It would be interesting to see what the picture looks like outside OECD countries where efforts are being made both to develop and improve their food safety management systems (to reduce incidences of foodborne disease) and also open up their export market to global trade of food they produce.

I feel proud and happy at the same time for Food Safety and Management system we developed in Canada. This is an wonderful effort by Food Industries, CFIA and other Govt./Public sectors. Congratulations everyone!!!

The Conference Board of Canada provides an invaluable tool to consumers, policymakers, companies, and researchers in our increasingly interconnected global food economy. Hopefully they will be able to produce these much sought after reports on an annual basis moving forward.